ROSEMARY PRESS BROCHURES 



To the Summit of 
CARDIGAN 

By the "NOMAD' 

(Joseph Edgar Chamberlin) 

aaeatr before tfje Cfjile Club, iaugufit 13, 1921 

Reprinted from the Boston Evening Transcript 
Issue of August 15, 1921 




rTr^ cCi-T -*■"•. a 

Posemarv 
^ Press 



For the use of the members of 
THE CHILE CLUB 



Copyright 192a 
by Rosemary Press. 



©C1A683714 

Qr:p 09 ..TOO 









In a general way, the Nomad accepts Ruskin's maxim that 
"mountains are to be looked at, not from." Acceptance of that 
saying indicates that the mind obeys the aesthetic impulse first of 
all. In looking at mountains — most mountains — one sees beauty 
of an inspiring, an emotional sort. In looking from the summit 
of a mountain one sometimes indeed sees great beauty, but the im- 
pression of that beauty is overlaid by the sense of vastness, a feel- 
ing of awe, a sort of shudder at so much grandeur. The emotion 
excited by the scene is not one of aesthetic delight, but one of deep 
wonder. One goes to the mountain top for a revelation, not for sim- 
ple delight, surely not for rest — and this the Nomad ventures to 
say in despite of Goetlie, who said "Ueber alien Gipfcln ist Ruhe. " 
Perhaps that was all right for Goethe ; his vast mind, accustomed 
to be moved, found at tlie mountain top that sort of emotion which 
to him was rest. It is not, so in the Nomad's case. In his lesser 
soul the summit rather inspires unrest. 

* * * 

For that reason, perhaps, the Nomad, when he climbs the 
mountains, prefers the lesser heights. In their case, he is nearer 
to the gentle valley. Even though from the top of Mount Wash- 
ington he has seen the ocean, and beheld seas upon seas of other 
mountains and a world full of forests, he is happier at the sum- 
mit of Lafayette, whence he can view in the distance his native 
valle}^ and the little lakes and the climbing pastures of Vermont. 
And then, again, he likes isolated heights, which somehow in- 
dividualize and £estheticize the prospect. It was this liking which 
led him the other day to climb a mountain with which his previous 
acquaintance had been ])ut casual. It was Cardigan, in western New 
Hampshire — a real and very beautiful mountain, seemingly of vol- 
canic origin, which stands alone in the midst of a lovely lake coun- 
try, and whose granite summit rises clean and dome-like above 
the rich timber that envelops its sides. And after the ascent had 
been made, and the wanderer's feet found themselves once more 
back in the valley, the Nomad was compelled to admit that the 
emotional experience abundantly justified the climb. For once, 
he would not have been content to rest with looking at the moun- 
tain, not from it. 



For weeks the weather had beeu hazy, with a purple veil over 
all the hills. The Nomad had been quite content with that aspect 
of nature. The dog-day haze really magnifies and glorifies the 
mountains. By it their beautiful forms are emphasized ; they are 
reduced to terms of line — their impression is simplified, and by 
that very means they answer the esthetic craving more directly 
as well as more softly and gently. Looking at Cardigan across the 
crystal waters of Hart's Pond at Canaan Street, the Nomad did 
not care whether he ever climbed it or not. It completely an- 
swered the soul's demand with its lordly dome, its distinguished 
form, its unchallenged command of a lovely landscape. But one 
afternoon there came a mountain storm which shook the earth and 
drenched the face of nature ; and next morning, when he arose, the 
air was as transparent as that strangely translucent atmosphere 
that one expects only in its perfection in the Rockies or the Sierras, 
and the thermometer on the porch indicated 50 degrees. Then 
everything in the world said, "Climb the mountain." And the 
Nomad went and climbed it — climbed it alone, for the sort of ex- 
pei'ience which lay before him was one that is lessened and qualified 
by the presence of others. When you meet God in the bush, or on 
the mountain top, you want no otlier company. 



Along with the transparent air and the cool temperature 
there went a fierce wind from the northwest. The Nomad noted 
that well in setting forth. And he had a little misgiving when, in 
parting from Luisita, he accepted at her hands the responsibility of 
taking no personal risk on the mountain. It was a promise which, 
in fact, he had had to make. It was a condition of the solitary 
journey. But as he climbed the long and rather rough path up 
Cardigan, he forgot the promise. The wind had only the effect, 
then, to make Wagnerian music in the tops of the pines and 
beeches. It was a divine adjunct to the climb. On the way, leav- 
ing the last pile of sawdust where the mills, near the base, had 
been making lumber for the great war, he entered a region of un- 
surpassed forest beauty. There he passed through a veritable wil- 
derness of fir balsams — the largest trees of this fine species, the 
greatest pure block of them, that he had ever seen. 



Across the trail up Cardigan, which is clear enough up to the 
timber line, the storm had thrown sundry tree trunks, which en- 
forced man3^ clambering detours, but these were not especially 
difficult. The path was lined with hobblebush (the Viburnum 
lantanoides), with ferns of every sort, with the pretty overhang- 
ing sprays of striped maple, with the tri Ilium in fruit, and many 
other beautiful things. Most of the way the path followed the 
noisy brooks upward, and some of the way the brooks followed the 
path downward. But it was a road of enchantment, and every 
moment was an exaltation. 



At last the trail came squarely out of the timber, which had 
now shrunk to a growth of stunted spruce, and was at a visible 
end. Smooth granite rocks lay before the climber — undulating 
rocks, as it were, but quite smooth. This was the granite dome of 
Cardigan. Above loomed this greater dome, and at the top of all 
a little lesser dome, the summit of which was not a hundred yards 
away. The goal of the journey was at hand. 



The ascent had heen up the western side of the mountain, and 
now, with the climber's entrance upon the open space at the sum- 
mit, the westward and southward panorama was in full view. And 
what a view! In the foreground the townships of Orange, 
Canaan, Enfield, Hanover and all their lakes — Hart's pond, here 
called "Crystal Lake," though there is another Crystal Lake plain- 
ly visible farther south; Mascoma, and other little shining bodies of 
water; villages here and tliere ; immediately to the westward. 
Moose mountain in Hanover, and past its slope, far but vividly 
clear, the Killington range in Vermont, with Killington peak and 
Pico sharply defined, picturescpie ; farther south, Ascutney's beau- 
tiful pyramid, standing solitary past the Connecticut; southward 
the southern Kearsarge, and farther, blue and magnificent, the 
divine shape of Monadnock. And is that point in the distance our 
own Wachusett? Manifestly it is. 



But how the wind blows ! It rushes over that granite dome as 
if its purpose was to clean it of every speck of dust, even of every 
projecting pebble-point — and that is what it has done in the ages. 
The wind rushed as if it were also its purpose to clear the moun- 
tain top of the little human excrescence that was now defying it. 
Going out on the dome, the Nomad felt himself losing his feet. A 
fierce gust made him get down on all fours! Stopping to mark 
the spot where he emerged from the timber, in order to find it 
again when he came back, the Nomad perceived that the tops of the 
little spruce trees simply would not be bent down. The winds of 
years and years seemed to have converted them into unbreakable 
steel. So he marked the spot with two white stones laid side by 
side, and pressed on. 



That is to say, he tried to press on. The wind caught him 
again — it was all fours for it once more. He fought his way on 
farther. The glistening waters of New Found Lake came into view 
on the east — a beautiful sheet of water, a real New Hampshire 
Windermere. As he looked at this lake, the Nomad was strangely 
impressed with the probability that if he kept on over the granite 
dome to the tip of the lesser dome at the summit, he would pres- 
ently be blown into the waters of that lake. It might be a pleas- 
ant journey of some fifteen miles through the air with a cool 
watery plunge at the end — but then the Nomad 's promise to Luisita 
came into his mind. "No risk" — that was it. The Nomad crept 
into the lee of a rounded rock, at the foot of which grew masses of 
red bear-berries, and also many more big fat blueberries than he 
could eat, and thought about it all. It was a clear case. You could 
only go to that summit on all fours, and even then you would be 
likely to find yourself presently creeping high in the upper air. He 
had to give it up. It was ignominious. Thus conscience doth make 
cowards of us all. 



But one recourse was open. He could creep around the sides, 
clinging to the little spruce trees at the lower edge of the dome. 
He did so, observing on the way the northward-looking panorama 



— Mount Cuba, toward the Connecticut, and Moosilauke, grand, 
gloomy and peculiar, and beautiful, graceful Lafayette, and now 
the looming masses of the Presidential Range. What a vision of 
massive grandeur ! But now a precipice yawned before the climber, 
The way was blocked in that direction. He could only retrace his 
steps, feasting his eyes on the great land of the granite hills, the 
raany-inleted lakes, and tlie far-stretchiiig, billowing forests. And 
the big wind, never ceasing, pulling and pushing all the time, 
shrieking in the ears, threatening and tlu-illing as it threatened! 
It was an exalting experience, not to be left behind without regret. 
But after the Nomad had got back to the lee of his rock, and had 
eaten his lunch, there was nothing for it but to clamber back over 
the rocks, and descend the trail which he had climbed, and hobnob 
with the hobblebushes once more, and wend liis way serenely over 
the long country road past the bleak farms of Orange back to the 
little lake of his holiday sojourning. 

To Cardigan he will go once more one of these days. It is a 
mountain to love. He does not resent, by any means, the apparent 
inhospitality of that summit when he visited it the other day; but 
the next time he goes he trusts that he will not be companioned by 
the hurricane. 



